Surecom NS Ltd was delighted to present this year’s winners of the Surecom Innovative Marketing award to a group of business students at Tipperary Institute today. Jim Sheehan, MD, who presented the award, commended all four groups who reached the final of the competition on their creativity, insight, teamwork and marketing expertise. “Now, more than ever we all need to think about innovative ways of promoting and marketing our businesses and there is real talent in this domain evident here among TI business students” says Sheehan.  

Established in 2005 and headquartered in Cahir (with offices in the Guinness Enterprise Centre, Dublin), Surecom is a leading provider of engineering solutions and services to the telecommunications and IT industry in Ireland and in the UK. They have a staff of 50 highly qualified and experienced engineers providing a single source of managed services to business partners such as 02, Meteor, Telefonica and Ericsson. Surecom recently won the Ulster bank ‘one to watch’ title in Munster and they won the services category in the 2009 Small Firms Association national small business awards.

The award entitled “The Fruits of our Labours” was the creation of the Nenagh based, avant-garde wood sculptor Damase Morin with his unusual, innovative and slightly surreal abstract sculptures.  “When I was commissioned to make this award I thought of reward for our labours. So I thought of a simple fruit tree as the design of the presentation piece. I exposed the roots of the tree to show that it has strong roots which means to have a strong fruit bearing tree you need strong roots, i.e. a good foundation”, says Morin.  The perpetual award is a really impressive piece carved out of Elm, with each team member receiving a smaller version of the award to keep.

The victorious students: Mary Caesar, Padraig Byrne, Claire Costello, Tony O’Brien and Breda Cunningham had to win through two rounds of presentations judged by business specialists from Tipperary Institute, Adrian Cash Student Officer with AIB Clonmel and Surecom. The winning team were applauded for their business idea “Your 5 a Day” fruit and vegetable delivery service. The marketing plan contest was open to first and second year marketing students across Tipperary Institute’s range of business courses. The competition enabled students, through their studies, practice the development of their analytical and presentation skills. It was evident from the range of business ideas presented that the skills needed for developing new ideas are being honed in Tipperary Institute. The teams were coached by Fiona Browne.